Darkness Shines
by Facehoof
Summary: Based off the game "Super Mario Sunshine". Things have definitely changed since Mario's last visit to Isle Delfino... and a new, sinister adventure unfolds. Rated T for some dark themes, language, and whatnot.
1. Prologue

It was a starry, dark night at Ricco Harbor, the only area on all of Isle Delfino where ships could rest at peace. All of it's shops were closed and deserted for the night. The entire harbor was empty, except for the two Piantas chasing after each other.

"I'm gonna getcha!" One of the Piantas yelled. It might've sounded like a threat, but it was all playful. He was male, in his early 20s. He was chasing the other pianta, a female around his age, who was laughing hysterically, barely putting up a chase.

The male pianta growled and pounced up on her, and she fell to the ground, laughing. She finally stopped laughing, and the male said, "Tag you're it."

The female got up first and helped her boyfriend up.

"Oh Marty, you're so childish!" The female started to laugh again.

"But that's why you love me, right Penny?" Marty beamed. Penny Pianta rolled her eyes, and grabbed Marty's hand. "C'mon," Penny suggested. "I want to see the stars."

-

The two sat on the edge of the harbor, near the fruit machines. Penny sighed, and rested her head on Marty's shoulder. Marty smirked from out of her view, and reached into his pocket and grabbed out a small, velvet box. Perfect, Marty thought.

"Penny?" He asked, getting up.

"Yes?" His girlfriend asked. "W-will you be mine?" Marty kneeled on the ground, opening the box and showing the ring with a bedazzling gem atop of it.

Tears began to well up in Penny's eyes. It was beautiful! "Oh, Marty... of course I will!" She cried tears of joy as he put the ring on one of her two fingers on her left hand.

"Yes!" Marty whispered. This was the best night of his life. Nothing could ever go wrong with her by his side. So, of course, then everything went wrong.

Just then, down below near the blcoked off sewage entrance, bubbles formed in the water. Then they stopped.

"Did you-" Penny frowned, but then shook her head. "What?" Marty asked. "It's nothing." Penny answered, and they both sat down again, just to remember this moment: the stars, the proposal, and unknowing to either of them, their last moment together.

Finally, after what seemed like an hour or so, Marty and Penny stood up. "I'll drive you home." Marty offered, so they started walking down to the newly built tunnel driving through the island, allowing easy travel.

The, the sound of bubble ocurred, followed by a low-unhuman moan.

"Did you hear that?" Penny asked nervously.

"Let's hurry up." Marty suggested, and they started to walk faster to his car, when they heard the sound of something erupting from the water. Marty whispered into Penny's ear.

"Run."

Before they made it to the car, something wrappen around Penny and held her down. "MARTY!" She screamed. Marty looked at what was going on, and ran toward the fallen Penny.

Marty ran over to her, but whatever was holding onto her just pulled her backwards, toward the water.

"PENNY!" He yelled at his fiance, now running faster. What was grabbing her? There was nothing grabbing her. She was being assaulted by some invisible force.

Marty yelled again, but before Penny could as well, she was pulled underwater. Marty caught up to the edge of the harbor, where the vast ocean was. No sign of Penny. She had... vanished? The only remaining sound was of bubbles in the distance, which soon stopped.

Marty knelt at the edge, looking at his reflection in the water, his tears falling into them.

Finally, the police arrived that morning, hearing complaints about the yelling, and found Marty lying at the edge, unconscious.

'What happened here?" The police chief muttered. While they were checking Marty, no one looked over in the water near the tunnel, where a ring floated on the water's surface.

It was Penny's.


	2. Chapter 1

**Mushroom Kingdom**

"And did you see me?" Luigi yelled to Mario, Peach, and Toad, while they crossing a grassy, mushroom-filled meadow. "I was all like BANG! BOOM! And Bowser's all like, _Noooooo!_ And that's how I was able to distract and defeat Bowser while you guys saved the princess!"

"Luigi," Mario rolled his eyes. "You passed out the moment you saw Bowser up close." The others snickered at this.

Luigi scoffed. "I like my take better. And I'm sure Princess Daisy will too." Mario rolled his eyes again.

"I can't wait to get back to my castle." Princess Peach sighed. "It's so nice, so relaxing, so cozy." She stopped and turned to Mario. "have I thanked you yet?"

"Only a million times, Princess!" Mario smiled, and Toad laughed behind them. It was nice to have Peach around them. She was so nice!

"Almost to the castle, guys!" Toad yelled. "I see it over the hills!"

"Finally, some rest and relaxa-" Mario started, but suddenly his phone went off. "Hello?" He asked.

"MARIO!" A voice screamed on the other end. It was Toadsworth. "Mario, you have to go to Isle Delfino now! Something's up. I haven't heard from their senate for a whole month now! I think something's up."

"Really? Are you sure?" Mario asked.

"Yes. Take the Princess with you too. The farther away she gets from the Kingdom, the better. You know that Bowser, never giving up."

"Now, just a second. I don't think-" Mario started, but Toadsworth had hung up. Mario sighed, and turned to the others. "C'mon, guys. We need to head off to Isle Delfino. Toadsworth things something's up."

They ran to the airstrip, where the Princess's Pink Jet was.

"So, what's going on?" Princess Peach asked.

"I dunno. Toadsworth says contact with Isle Delfino has been cut off for a month, so he just wants us to investigate." Mario replied, buckling himself in.

A voice went off on the jet's loudspeaker. "This is your captain speaking. We'd like to remind you that... blah blah blah..." There actually wasn't a captain, it was an automated voice. The entire jet actually ran on Auto-Pilot.

Nearby, Luigi began to fall asleep next to Toad, who already was asleep.

"I wonder if something is wrong with Isle Delfino," Peach contemplated. "We haven't gotten any food or grain imported from them for a long time."

Mario shrugged, and tipped his hat over his eyes, indicating he would doze off. Peach sighed and looked out the window at the Mushroom Kingdom's sunny skies.

She didn't know that there would be no sunny skies at the Island, nor might there ever be again. Five minutes later, the jet took off and soared into the skies. Peach decided to take a nap too, and rested her head on Mario's shoulder. Despite being asleep, a trace of a smile was imprinted on the plumber's face.

Everyone woke with a start as the plane rumbled through a spot of turbulence, less than 300 miles away from the island. Mario sighed, and got a glimpse of the outside. It was completely dark and cloudy above, rain starting to sprinkle down, until it turned into a full-fledged rainstorm. Was that hail? From that high, Mario couldn't tell.

"Mama Mia..." Luigi moaned in his seat.

"You okay?" Mario asked.

Luigi nodded his head. "Yeah, just a bad nightmare. All this talk of something bad on Isle Delfino got into my head and made it was than ever."

Peach looked concerned. "Do you remember any of it?"

"Nope. Well, something about a giant beast, or maybe there was more of them. They attacked everyone- including us." Luigi said, then his eyes widened. "Oh yeah, I didn't mention, we were there."

"Well, we're here now." Mario pointed out the window, the Delfino Airstrip close now.

"I'm so tired of sitting." Toad groaned, and stretched his limbs.

Luigi continued, although nobody really listened.

"Oh yeah, and I was flying too..."

**Delfino Airsrip**

Finally, the plane touched the ground and came to a slow stop. The voice on the loudspeaker started up, telling that it was time to unbuckle their seatbelts, and "Thanks for flying Mushroom Airlines!"

Mario opened the door, and they walked out onto the wet cement of the airstrip.

Peach frowned uneasily. "Where is everyone?"

Mario shrugged.

"It was raining pretty hard a few minutes ago. Perhaps they went inside." Toad suggested. They all agreed with this and walked over to the tower. "Hello?" Mario looked inside, but it was empty.

"Empty." Mario confirmed to the others. "Maybe we-"

"HALT!" A booming voice exclaimed behind them. Everyone jumped a little and looked behind them. A tall, large pianta in some sort of formal suit and sunglasses approached. Mario ran up to them.

"Oh thank goombas you're here, there's nobody-" Mario started, but the Pianta interrupted him by slapping him to the ground.

"MARIO!" Peach yelled in horror as Luigi and Toad ran to his defense, but the Pianta had not come alone. Three more Piantas in black suits, stopped them and put the three of them in handcuffs. Peach watched in shock until she heard a click and discovered another Piuanta behind her had snuck up and got her as well.

"What's going on here?" Mario yelled out loud.

The largest Pianta, the one that had slapped him, answered: "you are all under government arrest. Please come with us." 


	3. Chapter 3

"Get in there, you!" The Piantian soldier shoved Mario, Luigi, Peach, and Toad into a small, dark prison cell. They were in some sort of underground cavern, with cables running along the floors and walls everywhere and dim, flickering lights hanging from the ceilings.

Mario groaned and rubbed his cheek. "W-where are we?" He asked cautiously. The soldier ignored him and slammed the cell door shut. Now, it was practically pitch black, besides the ever-so-flickering light in the corner of the cell.

None of this made sense to any of them. They were under government arrest, but why? What had they done?

"I wanna go hooooome..." Luigi moaned as he curled up on the floor, but everybody else mostly just ignored him.

"What do we do now?" Peach asked, and Mario shrugged in reply.

"Just wait for something, I guess?" Mario suggested. Everybody else took this in painful silence, and they all curled up on the floor. They all knew nothing would happen.

But 3 hours later, something did happen.

"Hey!" A voice shrieked in the darkness of the room as Mario was smacked across the face with the top of some sort of gun. Mario opened his eyes, and saw two very angry soldiers looking straight down at him.

"May I help you?" Mario asked, though he figured it wasn't good to talk back to people like this. The two soldiers grabbed the plumber's soldiers and forcefully hoisted him up to his feet.

"Come on, tubby. Your friends are waiting." A soldier pointed past the open door and into a long hallway, where Mario caught a glimpse of the others being pushed along the hallway.

"Hey! What are you doing?" Mario asked, almost shouting it.

For the first time, Mario actually got in answer.

"You and all your friends will be held in a court of Government Law. Nobody will be there to help you. Now move along!"

Mario was amazed at the room when he was led into it. It was another room made of rock, but it was larger and had brilliant rays of light coming through small openings towards the top of the walls. Knowing better than to say or ask something stupid, he simply sat down next to his friends. Peach gave Mario a quick look full of fear from the corner of her eye, but Mario just tried to focus and look ahead.

Military court, or whatever they had said it was offically named, looked a whole let wierder then any court case Mario has seen on TV, on shows like "Judge Shroomy". There was no jury, no defense, no lawyer for them, just the prosecution. Mario, Peach, Luigi, and Toad all had a bad feeling about this.

They must've waited for a half-hour or so when three old, powerful-looking piantas walked in, wearing cloaks to conceal their whole bodies, face included. Everyone was forced to stand up and bow at the appearance of these piantas, until one in a dark red cloak said "Dismissed." Everybody sat down, as well as the three piantas at three golden chairs, possibly... thrones?

None of this made any sense to Mario. The arrest, the secret underground military base, or the court. But none of this compared to what would happen next.

The three piantas whispered to each other, and for a bit, they glared directly at Mario, and then continued. Mario could not hear all of what they were saying, but what he heard sent excruciating rage through his veins.

"The One in Red will cause the most trouble of all, says the President. He fears the One in Red will lead the new rebellion." One whispered.

The other two nodded their heads and looked down upon the four.

"Now wait just a minute!" Mario immediately jumped up and slammed his fist on the table, startling Luigi, who had begun to doze off. "What do you mean, rebellion? Why me? WHO'S THE PRESIDENT!" Mario yelled before several rushing soldiers grabbed him and handcuffed him.

The three piantas looked dissapointed, as if he had failed some sort of test, and now all of the others had failed as well.

After a short silence, a Pianta in a blue cloak stood up and cleared his throat. Mario had not been carried out of the room, but was surrounded by soldiers holding guns and tasers.

"We three Elder Piantas... find these four guilty. They will each be executed tomorrow at 0900 hours, by beheading. Is that clear?"

The soldiers may have agreed, but this did was not clear to Mario or the others. They each tried to get up and yell something, but they were all hushed.

"What do you mean guilty? Of what?"

"What do you mean Mario will cause a rebellion?"

"What the hell does 0900 hours mean?"

"Beheading? Ohhhh..."

Mario heard a thud and figured Luigi had fainted. Moments later, the four of them were grouped together and were led to their cell. Peach carried the unconscious Luigi, and gave Mario another look of worry. This time, he returned it, and attemped to put a caring hand on her shoulder, something that would say it would be alright.

"No touching!" A soldier behind them ordered.

Peach, Luigi, and Toad sat down ont he cold, damp floor of their cell as Mario banged his fist against the large metal door.

"OPEN UP!" Mario shouted repeatedly, but nothing.

"It's probably soundproof." Toad threw out, helpfully. Mario sighed and sat down with the others. It was hopeless, they were all doomed to die. That's when Luigi's head perked up.

"Hey... do you hear that?" Luigi asked. Everybody went silent and listened hard.

"I do hear it!" Toad exclaimed. "But what is it?"

"Sounds like... a drill?" Peach was puzzled. Suddenly, a hole appeared at the corner of the cell, and a large cloud of dirt and dust exploded out of the hole. Mario and the others coughed and rubbed their eyes, and looked at the hole, now clear of the cloud of dirt.

"What is that?" Luigi asked.

"Looks like a tunnel." Mario said. "But why-"

"MARIO!" A Noki's head immediately popped out of the hole, holding a drill-like contraption. Everybody jumped back in surprise. There was confusion for a second, until Mario came to a realization.

"Wait a minute- you're the Grandson of the Noki Elder!" Mario recognized him. The Grandson gave a quick smile, but returned to his serious face. "Listen, we have very little time to get out of here, and I have none to explain, but you guys have to come with me! Quick!"

They considered this for a moment, but knew getting led to another secret location was better than getting beheaded. They began to climb down into the tunnel when the sirens went off.

"Go, go, GOOO!" The Grandson yelled and the four ran off into the direction of the tunnel. He watched them dissappear into the tunnel's darkness, and turned around. The metal door slammed open as solders rushed toward him.

The Noki Grandson did nothing but threw a grenade towards the incoming soldiers. They reacted too late, and the Grandson disappeared down the hole as a rumbling explosion occured. He stopped for a minute, and set down a silver suitcase-like object with a countdown of 10 seconds on it. A bomb.

"That'll keep them." He muttered to himself as he ran down the tunnel, trying to catch up with the others.

The bomb went off.


End file.
